A Senate hearing is being held in Saskatoon today to examine the rights of First Nations people living off-reserve.
Deputy chairman of the Human Rights Committee, Patrick Brazeau, says off-reserve residents are being discriminated against in a number of ways.
He says many can’t get federal education-dollars they are entitled to receive or tap into various programs and services:
“Well it always becomes a money issue at the end of the day unfortunately, but you know if we look at the current federal spending, and these are the federal government’s own numbers, for every eight dollars they spend on-reserve only one dollar is spent off-reserve”.
Brazeau says another complaint the committee has heard is that off-reserve residents are sometime unable to vote in band-custom elections.
Today’s hearing is just one installment in the senate’s fact-finding tour across the country.